Emma has worked therapeutically with young people and their families for the past three years. In addition to her one to one and family therapy work, Emma set up her Self-Care Sparkle groups two years ago to support young people to both identify and express their feelings within their school environments. Her school Self-Care Sparkle sessions are a combination of classroom based and outdoor therapy sessions.
BBC Spotlight Film: Self-Care Sparkles Workshop
The Self-Care Sparkles sessions are based around her therapeutic story “Maddy Kate lost her sparkle” which was written by Emma and beautifully illustrated by Katy Leigh. Emma’s story is about how Maddy Kate finds her inner sparkle by connecting to her senses both within nature and within the home.
“Maddy Kate lost her sparkle” is available on Amazon via this link if you would like to purchase a copy.
Emma’s groups support the emotional well being of Dorset school children by supporting them to care for their feelings, for example sadness, anger and anxiety with self-care coping strategies. Emma’s sessions are suitable for Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5 children, although can be easily adapted to all age groups. Emma has experience working alongside young people multi-agencies, and will work alongside your class teachers and school ELSA Worker to ensure all young people have a safe space to voice their feelings and further school emotional support will be provided if necessary.
Going forward Kelly Thomas from Dorchester Counselling and Well being will be joining Emma to run these sessions across Dorset schools.
“We have used Emma for the past 3 years with her sparkle workshop. It is a fantastic opportunity for the children to open up about their feelings and share their experiences that may not be revealed in day to day teaching. From these sessions we can then implement further support for identified children. The sessions are fun, interactive and of course contain lots of sparkles which the children adore!!”
“The children spoke very highly about the session and particularly liked having time to think about what helps them when they are feeling sad or angry. They felt able to constantly use these ‘sparkle quilts’ to check an activity they could do when they feel extreme emotions. They really engaged well with the story and will talk about how it’s important to do things we enjoy to fill our buckets”.
“A fantastic opportunity for children to learn about mental health and strategies to keep them healthy in a child friendly way. Thank you Emma!”